Acute Care Alberta extends contract with private surgery clinic at centre of conflict of interest probes

The Alberta agency overseeing acute care has granted a six-month contract extension to a private surgical clinic whose previous provincial government contracts are the subject of several ongoing probes.

In a $1.7-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed in February, ousted former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos alleges she received political pressure to renew contracts with chartered surgical facilities (CSFs) that she believed were overpriced. Her lawsuit alleges she had been fired after launching an investigation into various contracts with links to government officials.

Alberta's auditor general, AHS and a retired Manitoba judge appointed by the province are among the agencies investigating the province's health procurement and contracting processes.

Mentzelopoulos raised concerns about several issues with different contracts, including a orthopedic surgery contract signed with an Edmonton-based company, Alberta Surgical Group (ASG). She alleges AHS was paying higher rates per procedure compared to other vendors.

Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and AHS have filed statements of defence in the Court of King's Bench, denying the allegations. They said Mentzelopoulos was fixated on suspicions of wrongdoing, and standing in the way of the government's plan to restructure Alberta's health system.

Mentzelopoulos has refuted these claims. 

Neither Alberta Surgical Group, nor any of the company's owners, responded to requests for comment about the contract extension on Wednesday. The company has previously denied any conflicts or wrongdoing.

When the allegations became public in February, an AHS spokesperson said the authority had paused the awarding of surgical contracts under review, then later clarified that the pause was limited to "new surgical contracts."

ASG was under contract from Nov.1, 2022, to April 30, 2025, to perform orthopedic surgeries in the Edmonton area. The maximum value of the contract for the entire time period is listed at about $70.5 million, but details of each procedure's cost are redacted from the publicly posted agreement.

On April 1, the government transferred the authority to sign surgical contracts over to the new Acute Care Alberta agency, which will be responsible for overseeing hospital-based care and CSFs in the province.

On Monday, LaGrange's press secretary said Acute Care Alberta had extended ASG's contract for six months.

In the legislature on Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith said the many ongoing investigations had delayed the startup of a new private surgical centre scheduled to open on the Enoch Cree Nation, just west of Edmonton.

"We're not going to cancel thousands of surgeries for hip and knee replacements," she said.

LaGrange told reporters Wednesday the Enoch facility had already won a bid to provide surgeries in the Edmonton area once it was up and running, which it is expected to be in 2026.